Posts Tagged ‘moon’

“The Google guys and James Cameron are going into asteroid mining?” Spence says.

“They’ve already formed a company,” Admin says. “Planetary Resources. This is a very long-term project, but so was – for example – the exploration of our own planet.”

“What about people who say all our efforts should be focused on earthbound problems?”

“Earth’s resources are finite. If we hope to go on for a long time, we’ll need resources from somewhere else. That’s the practical side. There’s also a spiritual side.”

“Spiritual?”

“I’m talking about the human spirit. Isn’t curiosity a big part of it?”

“I’ve never thought about that,” Spence says. “Sorry – just a joke. But how do we know there are minerals on the asteroids?”

“A lot of the heavy minerals on earth came from asteroid hits,” Admin says. “The planet’s own supply got sucked to the core back in the molten ball days. The asteroids could also be a source of water.”

“What about mining the moon? It’s closer.”

“It’s another possibility, certainly for water. But I don’t know about heavy minerals there. There’s a lot I don’t know about this – but I suspect there’s one Plunderer out there who’s an expert on space mining, the legal side of it for sure.”

“They’ve found water on the moon,” Bernie says. We’re out on the patio behind our house on Mesquite Road. It’s night, the moon is shining, Bernie’s smoking a cigarette even though he’s trying to quit and I’m enjoying the smell of the smoke, whenever the breeze blows some my way. “See what this means?”

Water on the moon? I’m no expert when it comes to color, Bernie says, but water is usually blue. I gaze up at the moon, see no blue, just a big shining white ball.

He taps off some ash and gazes up at the moon, too. We gaze up together.

“It means that one day we’ll be living up there,” he says. “For absolute sure.”

Whoa. I like it right here on Mesquite Road. A cloud drifts over, covering the moon. I feel uneasy.

And what a great trip. We went camping in the desert. A full moon at night: Bernie sang this old song he’s fallen in love with – Lonesome 77203. Made no sense to me but I did my woo-woo thing. Then he pointed out this dot in the sky. Mars, he said, and maybe we should go there. If that’s what he wants, okay. I’ve been in a plane, maybe you don’t know that. I think it’s in Thereby Hangs A Tail. Bernie said the problem with going to Mars is coming back and anyone who goes will probably have to stay there, something about fuel. I’m not so sure about staying there. I kind of like it here.

Tomorrow: back to the Greed case. Bernie says maybe we should have a quiz about it.